At least this whole situation was distracting me from my thoughts about Ezra and the lollipop.
“You can do it,” Bailey said. “That’s the easy part.”
“Yeah, the planning the wedding is hard,” Hunter added.
“How do you two know? Neither of you are married,” I said.
Bailey shrugged and gestured to some of our teammates. “No, but they all are, and we’ve all heard them bitch about wedding planning. Remember when Kegan got super stressed about figuring out what he was going to wear? Fucking nightmare. His wife literally picked her dress in one trip. She’d seen it online, went in, tried it on, job done. But he spent six months agonising over different materials and got three different suits made.”
“It looked good, though,” Hunter said.
“Yeah, it did.”
“This is why I’m never getting married,” I said. “Too much faff.”
“You might change your mind if you meet the right person,” Bailey said.
“Maybe,” I said, but I wasn’t convinced. It really did seem like a whole lot of hassle for a bit of paper. And while I looked hot as fuck in a suit, that didn’t seem like a good enough reason to get a nice one.
“You still need to organise something with Jessica,” Charlie said. “I really think she’d be good for you.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll think about it.”
I wasn’t going to, but I didn’t need to tell Charlie that.
“Mate, why won’t you message her? She actually liked you and that’s rare. Don’t fuck it up by being a dick and running away,” Charlie said.
“I’m not!” I could feel frustration rising suddenly in my stomach, the bitter taste of bile appearing in the back of my throat. Why wouldn’t he drop it?
And how the fuck could I tell him I wasn’t interested without giving him a reason? I’d moaned for months about being single, and here was this beautiful woman who thought I was funny and charming, and all I wanted to do was run away. But I knew if I said that, Charlie would want to know why, and I wasn’t ready for that.
I could barely even admit my feelings to myself.
Because despite the fact I spent most of my time around a bunch of queer men, I was struggling with the idea that I could be gay.
It was something that felt like it should be for other people, not me.
But at the same time, I couldn’t stop thinking about our sexy social media manager and what it might be like to do anything with him.
The two thoughts were at war with each other, and I didn’t know which side was going to win. Half the time, all I could hear was my dad’s voice as he yelled slurs at players on the TV and guys on our street that he hated. And the way he’d told me that “real men play sport” and “no son of mine will ever be a nancy.”
The ironic thing was we didn’t speak anymore because he was a wanker. But his words still lingered in my memory, clinging there and refusing to budge, like a stubborn, toxic stain.
It was only in the last few years, being around guys like West and Devon and Mason and now Jonny and Matty, that I’d realised my dad’s words were bullshit. Because there was no way to fuck you weren’t calling any of them men. West would have flattened him without a second thought.
“You should go and see Tommy,” I said to Charlie before he had a chance to say anything else about setting me up. “We’re supposed to be in the gym in two minutes.”
“Yeah, okay.” He looked at me, and I wasn’t sure if the pain in his expression was from his intestines or something else. “Youknow, if there’s something going on, Danny, you can talk to me, right?”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Cool, ’cos I want you to be happy. That’s all. And if you want me to back off, I will.” Charlie smiled softly and I nodded.
I knew he genuinely meant it, but even so, that didn’t mean I was going to tell him. Not until I’d figured it out.
I put my hand into my bag pocket and felt the lollipop there.
After training, I was going to get some answers… to questions I didn’t even know how to ask.
